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SCANDAL: there’s another toxic plot in the Conservative party

‘Nothing happens in politics by accident’

Greenpeace’s undercover reporter has taped senior Tories openly acknowledging the ‘plot’ to undermine the coalition agreement on tackling climate change. In the recorded interview, Peter Lilley is clearly heard recommending that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Liberal Democrat Ed Davey, should be the focus of anti-windfarm attacks, and agreeing that George Osborne would sanction such undermining.

This yet again, raises the question of why are the LDs supporting the Tories to dismantle, and privatise for profit, everything that was good about the UK?

Furthermore, why hasn’t John Hayes been sacked for working against his minister? And when is Caroline Flint, shadow minister for energy, going to get stuck in to make the overwhelming case for renewable energy?

This story doesn’t primarily concern Delingpole and the by-election; it’s really about a split within the coalition on wind farms and the Tories’ long-term electoral tactics. Heaton-Harris says of John Hayes in the video:

‘He’s a man in a department which absolutely hates him [but] there’s enough support in Cabinet to keep him there and at the moment it’s quite active on the issue.’

The department in question is led by Ed Davey, a Liberal Democrat. He and Hayes have clashed over wind farms again this week, with Hayes saying that is ‘job done’ with onshore wind. Hayes’ supporters in Cabinet include the Chancellor, who is reported (by the well-connected Ben Brogan writing in mid-June of this year) to believe that halting onshore wind farm construction is a vote winner in marginal rural and semi-suburban constituencies like Corby. It is, therefore, not wholly surprising to discover that the Tories were courting independent campaigners like Delingpole (who UKIP were also after to mount an attack on the Tories from the right) while they were refashioning their posture on the issue; but it is slightly surprising to find them getting caught doing so. Then again, perhaps it isn’t.